Does SLI work /w any S3D solutions???

[cybereality]

Does SLI work with any stereo 3d solutions?

Specifically I'd like to know if the new nvidia drivers with the Zalman 22" will benefit from an SLI setup (dual 8800GTS 512MB)?

[nubie]

Does SLI work with any stereo 3d solutions?

Specifically I'd like to know if the new nvidia drivers with the Zalman 22" will benefit from an SLI setup (dual 8800GTS 512MB)?

AFAIK there is only one beta driver (77.77?) that even claimed to support Stereo3D, and that is for really old cards of the 6 series.

The Zalman uses a single cable, and renders odd and even rows of pixels to different eyes.

I could be way off, and I don't have my g92 or window vista any longer.

[Freke1]

You could ask here:
http://nvidia.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/nvid ... td_alp.php
I curious too. Or You could try to install the drivers and see if they work in red/blue 3D.

[cybereality]

You could ask here:
http://nvidia.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/nvid ... td_alp.php
I curious too. Or You could try to install the drivers and see if they work in red/blue 3D.

Those help files are for the old XP driver, nvidia hasn't updated those in a while.

I can't test it out yet cause I don't have SLI or a Zalman or even Vista for that matter. I'm trying to figure out if I should get the second video card or maybe just save that money to put toward the Zalman 22". Or I guess I could just get both and hope it might work but I'm not too fond of $1000 surprises.

[nubie]

SLi isn't really "done" yet, so even in supported games it isn't really worth your money, you can get a much higher overall performance boost by either overclocking your card or buying one with more stream processors, higher clocked SP, or more memory bandwidth.

You can invest in an aftermarket cooling solution with some Arctic Silver thermal compound and do a simple volt-mod (usually involves drawing on a component with a standard pencil and measuring the result http://www.vr-zone.com/content/6 ) and extract a lot of performance, this might not be your thing, but I have gotten 30-50% more performance out of several cards this way, none have died (gotta keep an eye on those temps and do proper burn-ins though, I use Arctic Silver always), and that is all that SLi can promise anyway, if you check out the reviews.

Keep in mind that the OC is always faster performance, some games don't benefit at all from SLi, or less than 10% boost, which is ridiculous for the outlay in an SLi setup.

I would either look into an overclock, or get a factory overclocked card (the top rung one, like the XXX Alpha Dog edition, or the SSC edition, I am unsure of the brand names since I do my own over-clocking). As far as a display goes the iZ3D is looking good if only for their stellar driver support of all cards (not SLi due to Mfg drivers being what they are, no dual output in SLi modes, or tri-/quad-output for that matter ), and had free shipping and a price equal to the Zalman at newegg.com this last week. I would of course like to try one in person, that doesn't seem like it will happen for me though

A side benefit of adding your own thermal solution is that many times it is quieter than the factory cooler, while offering better cooling, so you can leave it on high all the time and enjoy temps 20-30°C cooler than the OEM cooler on your card. It never hurts to have a 120mm Fan in the front of your case aimed at the PCI-E area and with all of the cabling routed out of the airflow as much as possible. I used a Scythe S-Flex unit and it isn't annoying or loud at all. I don't like case fans with tiny little holes to breathe through, so I cut out the restrictive grille when possilbe to allow all the air through the fan, it doesn't have to work as hard, is quieter and lasts longer as a result.

[The_Nephilim]

I have seen at the 3d FlightSim Site they had SLI'd 6800 and it didn't help performance much in 3D. here is the link of their test:


http://www.3dflightsim.com/tests.htm

[stee1hed]

I wonder if it would be possible to take the fully accelerated single output from an SLI setup, feed it into one of those Matrix DualHead2Go rigs and get stereo out of that. Need to look into that more.

Anyone here have one of those Matrix devices?

http://www.matrox.com/graphics/en/gxm/p ... o/home.php

[cybereality]

It just seems so strange that SLI isn't really supported proper in stereo 3d. It would almost seem like you would *need* SLI to run stereo. Its like a no-brainer solution, one video card for each eye. I was hoping nvidia fixed it in the new driver but there doesn't seem to be an official word either way. One could hope though.

@nubie: Yeah, I'm already planning on getting a factory overclocked GPU (evga 8800gts 512mb ko), I think that will be good. I've heard about the "pencil mod" but I'd like to keep my life-time warranties intact . SLI seemed to provide decent gains in some games. Anywhere from 10% to as much as 50%+ on certain titles. Since stereo 3d render times typically add a decent amount of overhead, this is where SLI can be of help. So assuming SLI worked in S3D it could offset the stereo overhead to result in a similar FPS as running in 2D. But even in the worst case, it can't hurt to have the second GPU.

[stee1hed]

I am very interested in this SLI thing because I just ordered a laptop with it.

I've done some more research and found this thread on stereo3d.com (where's Cristoph by the way!?)

http://www.stereo3d.com/discus/messages ... 1169124411

The guys at http://www.3Dflightsim.com have successfully used the DualHead2Go to do page flipped stereo using SLI and have some performance charts. Their report is here http://www.3dflightsim.com/tests.htm

I think I am going to need to invest in one of these if I want to use the laptop with my TDVisor (Ethan says it's being shipped to me this week! ).

[Welder]

Hello,

The Matrox Dual head to go is still in development for us, and is still in an early testing period.



Also, you may want to consider CrossfireX, because ATI has pulled it off where it does not disable outputs in CrossfireX mode.

[pixel67]

You would think that DLP3D (Checkerboard) would be real easy to support with an SLI setup. It only requires a single output.